


fantasy overture

by RecklessDaydreamer



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: M/M, Masquerade Ball
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 11:57:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13247757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RecklessDaydreamer/pseuds/RecklessDaydreamer
Summary: Damien has been tapped to open the Solstice Ball. Luckily, it’s a masquerade, so no one will notice if his partner isn’t… well… human.





	fantasy overture

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Phyoaros](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phyoaros/gifts).



> A Secret Santa gift for queer-trans-cryptid/Phyoaros!
> 
> Title from the Fantasy Overture from Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet (http://bit.ly/1I71Ng0).

_Lord Arum,_

_I have a request to make of you. The solstice ball is tomorrow evening— the longest night of the year. It’s a marvelous ball, held in the Queen’s palace, and the Knights are expected to open it with the first dance. This year, I have been chosen, and I find myself in need of a partner. The ball is a masquerade— everyone goes in disguise. Would you be willing to dance with me?_

_Please reply soon._

_Sir Damien of the Second Citadel_

 

Damien stares at the letter for a long moment. It looks ridiculous now that he’s written it all out. But he doesn’t really have a better option. He retrieves his pigeon, ties the letter to its leg, and lets it flap off into the twilight. The Swamp of Titan’s Blooms is a long ride away, but a pigeon can make it in a night.

He turns from the window and starts pacing circles in the pigeon roost. Familiar patterns, like the steps of a dance. “Saint Damien,” he says, listening to the way his voice fills the dusty corners of the roost alongside the rustling of wings. “Saint Damien, give me your tranquility. The sun is setting and tomorrow is the longest night of the year. I am in need of a partner for this ball, and Rilla… I don’t pretend to understand her inventions, but since she twisted her ankle testing whatever those wheeled boots were, she’s been resting and can’t dance. Still, might it be better if Lord Arum didn’t come at all? It would certainly be easier to explain to the Queen if I didn’t have a partner at all than if my partner was, well, a lizard. A very kind, noble, gentle lizard.” Arum _is_ gentle to him, when they’re alone, at least, and there’s no one to see. Almost— tender, and so unsure, as if he doesn’t quite know how to act.

“I would like this chance to dance with him, Saint,” Damien says into the darkness, and it feels like a prayer on his lips. “I would like to see him in the candlelight. It’s a masquerade. One night. No one will know if my— if Arum were to masquerade with me.”

 

Damien gets up at dawn and skips breakfast to run across the Citadel to the pigeon roost where he first sent his letter to Arum. The pigeon hasn’t returned yet, and he walks back to the palace by a meandering route, lost in thought.

The streets are decked in ribbons and garlands. There’s smoke rising from every chimney, and Damien can already smell food cooking. By the time he gets back to the palace, the ballroom is half hung with banners, and Sirs Brannon and Emilio are unloading another pallet of satins. Damien rolls up his sleeves and starts helping.

He checks the pigeon roost again early in the afternoon. The bird isn’t back and neither is any message from Arum. When Damien starts back through the streets, candles are already being lit in every window to carry the light of day through the night. The palace has started to glow, too. When Damien walks past the open doors, Angelo is winching the first of six chandeliers up over the arched trusses that span the ballroom, each chandelier decked with a hundred slow-burning candles.

Then it’s dusk, and the sun is hanging low over the rooftops. Damien scrambles into his nicest shirt and digs his mask— a hawk worked in copper— out of the chest under his bed. Not enough time to run to the pigeon roost before the ball, so he goes up to the rampart to look out over the Citadel.

It’s a blaze of light. There are big, faceted lanterns on the wall around the Citadel, and small lanterns lining the streets, and candles in every window. But no matter how well-lit, there’s no way he’ll be able to spot Arum in the crowds that fill the streets.

 “Saint Damien,” he says, “I have need of your tranquility tonight. Will Arum come? What if he comes? What do I do, Saint? What do I _say_? What if someone realizes he’s not human? Give me your tranquility,” he says again, and it’s a plea this time. “Give me your tranquility…”

There are footsteps on the stairs. Angelo calls, “Sir Damien! Are you up there?”

“I’m here,” Damien calls back, forcing himself to turn away from the rampart.

Angelo is waiting at the base of the stairs. “The ball is starting,” he says. “Where’s Rilla?”

“She sprained her ankle,” Damien says, starting down the corridor.

Angelo jogs after him and catches up. “Who will you dance with?”  
“I invited… a foreign Lord.”

“Oh!” Angelo says. “Most exciting! When will your Lord arrive?”

“I’m… not sure.”

“He must arrive soon,” Angelo says, and claps Damien on the shoulder so hard he staggers.

Damien sighs. “Thank you, my friend.”

They descend a back staircase and emerge into the palace courtyard. It’s packed with people wearing masks, all milling around in front of the wide double doors of the ballroom. The air has cooled, but it’s still warm enough that Damien’s glad he’s in shirtsleeves. He climbs the steps in front of the ballroom to look out over the courtyard, but he doesn’t see anyone who could possibly be Arum in disguise. “Saint Damien, give me your tranquility,” he whispers.

The bells start to ring, softly at first and then louder, and the doors swing slowly open. Damien hurries back down the steps to lose himself in the crowd, which surges forward and spills into the ballroom.

It’s beautiful, really, with the candlelight glowing on the polished floor, the banners and ribbons and tapestries on the walls. The Queen’s dais is draped in silks at the far end of the hall and the Queen herself is standing on it. Her headscarf is netted with tiny, glittering crystals, and when she raises her hands to quiet the crowd, she looks more regal than ever. Which is saying something.

“Citizens of the Second Citadel,” she says. “Tonight is the longest night of the year and we are here to carry the light through it.” She raises a gold filigree mask to her eyes. “Let the ball begin!”

There’s a cheer, so loud Damien can feel it, and then the orchestra strikes up the prelude, and the dance floor is clearing rapidly as the rest of the knights who were picked to open the ball take their positions with their partners. Even Sir Caroline is there, in a lioness mask despite her protests, hand in hand with a woman in a blue dress and matching sequined mask. Damien ducks behind his own mask but he’s frozen because _Arum’s not here— Saints above, what do I do, what do I do_ —

and then a hand wraps around his elbow and a voice like velvet says, “Come and dance, little knight.”

“Lord Arum?” Damien says in disbelief as they step onto the dance floor arm in arm. Arum is dressed in a long tunic, cape, gloves, all dark silks embroidered in gold and just covering his scales. His mask is shaped like a roaring dragon, wide and elaborate enough that his frill and horns look like part of the masquerade. He’s— _beautiful_ , Damien thinks. His heart is beating so fast he’s sure Arum can feel it. Those eyes are violet as ever, almost glowing in the shadows of his mask.

They take their positions in the middle of the floor. Damien grabs onto Arum’s gloved hands like they’re anchors as the song starts. It’s a familiar dance, this one, a fox step in smooth double time. The first few steps send Damien and Arum tripping over each other until Arum hisses, “Let me lead, little knight.” Damien does, and Arum pulls him through the next turn, and the next, and the next. A pass to the side, promenade, half turn, and Damien just tries not to think too hard. _Saint Damien, give me your tranquility,_ he thinks instead, and traces it on the ground with his feet: _tranquility, tranquility_.

The music swells, and they go spinning across the dance floor. Arum’s eyes glitter behind his mask, deeper than the sky at twilight, and his clawed hands holds Damien’s callused ones gently, and for a step and a turn Damien isn’t thinking at all, just whirling through this golden candlelit moment with his Arum, his love, and he could exist forever here.

The music slows to a soft ostinato and people flood onto the dance floor, now wearing masks of every shape and kind. Damien just stares at Arum. “You came.”

Arum lifts his chin, a gesture as defensive as it is regal. “You asked me to.”

Damien would try to explain his shock, his surprise, but just then the orchestra starts to pick up a new melody. Damien goes to reach for Arum’s hands, only to realize they’re still just a breath apart. “Leave room for the Saints” seems to have been abandoned. Damien can’t say he minds.

The next dance is fast, a high-stepping pagode that moves quick enough that Arum, agile but a novice at the less common dances, nearly trips. Damien catches him, almost lifts him off his feet, and Arum doesn’t say anything but he hangs onto Damien’s hands. The orchestra transitions into a swing dance and from that into a triple-time juliette before finally slowing to a stop for an intermission.

Damien and Arum step off the dance floor, still within arm’s reach of each other. Before either can say anything, Angelo’s appeared from the crowd. “Sir Damien, is that you? It is I, Sir Angelo! You might not have recognized me in my mask.” It’s a bear, solid and etched like fur, but Angelo is still easily recognizable. “Your partner has arrived!”

“Yes!” Damien says. “Right! Him!” Arum’s looking sideways at him. He coughs. “Sir Angelo, may I introduce—” _Saints above, we didn’t discuss this, what name do I give him—_

“Lord Arum, of the eastern reaches.” Arum bows smoothly, flourishing his cape. “A pleasure.”

“Sir Angelo, of the Second Citadel,” Angelo says. “I’m glad you’re here. Sir Damien has been pining.”

“I have not,” Damien says.

Arum tilts his head. “I… see.” Whether he’s saying that to Damien or Angelo, Damien doesn’t know.

“Well, I’d better go,” Angelo says. “Happy solstice!”

“Happy solstice!” Damien replies, and then it’s just him and Arum.

“You were pining?” Arum finally asks.

“What? No. Absolutely not. I was— nervous, that’s all.”

“Nervous?”

“That— well— that you wouldn’t arrive in time. Or at all. I could have explained myself to the Queen, had you not come, but I did hope…” Damien trails off.

Arum sighs, like it should be so obvious. “You humans and your doubts. Of course I came.”

“It’s just a ball. It’s trivial, Arum, you could still be discovered—”

“Trivial,” Arum scoffs. “It’s hardly trivial for you.”

Damien offers Arum his arm as the orchestra swings into the next song. “Shall we, my Lord?”

Arum takes his arm. “We shall.”

The ball lasts through the night until the sky has started to lighten with the faintest hint of dawn. The Queen stands up on the dais to declare the last dance. It’s an old-style waltz, uncomplicated and slow. Three-beat time, no steps more urgent than closeness. Damien pulls Arum in, abandoning the last few inches of proper distance they’d maintained, and they sway under a thousand candlelights. Whether they’re really dancing hardly matters. Damien feels giddy in a strangely soft way. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep. Maybe it’s Arum so close.

The orchestra finally fades out of the last chord. The dance floor empties as the Queen announces the end of the ball and the new solstice season. Damien and Arum make their way through the ballroom, out into the courtyard, and through the gates to the largely deserted streets.

The predawn light turns the streets to silver landscapes. When they’re far enough from the palace, Arum removes his mask and cloak, hanging both over one of his arms. They walk toward the east gate in silence, and slowly enough that Damien knows they’re both trying to make this last. Finally he says, “I must speak my heart.”

Arum chuckles, a low rattling sound. “Very well, honeysuckle.” His voice is fond.

“I wouldn’t have asked you to come to the solstice ball had I not— well, had I not wanted you there. With me. It was an honor, Arum. I enjoyed dancing with you.”

“I would do so again,” Arum says.

They’ve stopped in the middle of the street, which is quiet and empty. Arum’s gaze, when it fixes on Damien, is piercing. When did Damien’s hand end up on Arum’s chest? Probably the same time Arum’s arm wrapped around Damien’s waist.

Damien kisses him. A reckless gesture. Panic courses through him, tangles in his chest.

Arum kisses back.

There’s a moment when Damien could pull away, could keep walking, but he doesn’t. Instead he presses closer to Arum, kisses him deeper, wishes this could never end. They only separate at the sound of footsteps around the corner.

Arum is still holding Damien’s hand, and though neither acknowledges it they walk the rest of the way a little more slowly, holding on a little tighter.

 

**Author's Note:**

> dance partner, life partner, what's the difference
> 
> I'm @swallowtailed on tumblr, come say hi!


End file.
